User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Sun Jul 15, 2018 9:30 pm

After being completely obsessed with Rogue for the Amiga for several weeks (and the obsession continues) I started to wonder, "How much fun might this be on my other buddy, the C64? Is it that different?"

So I downloaded the d64 file and fired it up.

First off, this is a crack. But it's a very unusual and glorious crack! I almost never say that. For one, the original program was on cassette tape. It was made in 1988 by Mastertronic, and this crack made the program loadable off of a floppy drive. Win! And it doesn't introduce any intro text or goofy epilepsy inducing flashes or graphics during load. Win!

Once it does load, you're presented with a very simple screen to enter your character's name. That's pretty much it.
IMG_6330.jpg
After that, you're dropped into a completely different environment than the Amiga version. The game has very interesting graphics and, frankly, struck me as being quite familiar with something else I'd seen recently during my Amiga adventures. More on that in a minute.
IMG_6331.jpg
The game is mostly mouse, er, I mean joystick-driven (it took me a second to understand how to move around after using my keyboard on the Amiga for so long). Even though the cursor looks like a bizarre left-turn road sign, it actually is an indicator of where your character will "follow" if you click the joystick button. So if you move your mouse to the right corner of your screen, your character will try to move up there unless a wall gets in your way. That being said... amazingly, your character seems to only be able to move in the cardinal positions of left/right/up/down. That's a hit and a massive detriment, for sure.
IMG_6332.jpg
You've got your hit points, strength and armor points below the main screen as you'd expect. But in the C64 version, your STR actually ticks down - almost like a timer! Unbelievable. By the time you finish exploring level one, your STR will be almost to zero. And when that happens? You freaking die! In addition, if you encounter any monsters you'll probably die, too. In this version of the game ANY monster encounter means death. And quickly. The only saving grace is if you leave a room that has monsters in it, they don't appear to follow you. But that room better not have the stairs down, as it might as well be your death chamber. So you then run around all the way around to try and see if the stairs might be in a different direction.

As soon as you find the stairs down, more than once I spawned right next to a monster. And you don't decide what to use. You simply wield things, and the program performs the fight for you. And you die.

I can't believe this shipped like this.

Rogue is hard enough as it is. In the C64 version, it's bafflingly cruel and, well, not much fun which is really painful because the UI is so interesting. You do start the game with 1 ration of food, but it doesn't really give you very much strength back (maybe 30 points?). Which simply drains away, even if you stand still! And that might only take one minute of real time. And - I think - there is no pause, either.

One of the glorious aspects of the Amiga version (and the original, as far as I know) is there is no time. You can walk away from the game for hours and let it just sit there while you're in the middle of combat to go do some chores and ponder your next move. Not the C64 version. It's more like a timed sporting event - but more arcade-like in the sense that this game is trying to get you to stop playing as soon as possible.

That's a tragic design choice in my opinion.
IMG_6333.jpg
Even though the game is mostly mouse-driven, if you wish to use the items in your inventory (seen on the right side of the screen, which is a nice UI enhancement) you're given a new "modal" where you have to decide what to do with that item. Either use it, or drop it basically. So rather than have a keyboard-driven interface where you might press "D" to drop any item, instead you use the cursor to "click" on an item in the right panel, then use the keyboard to decide what to do with it based on the first letter of each command.

That's when it hit me. This interface really looked familiar. Sure, since I was in the C64 low-res screen, I could only see one room at a time (maybe 2 max) but the details and UI layout were just like the Atari ST version! It's worth pointing out that if you type "T" you can get a zoomed out view of your map, which looks a bit more like the Amiga version's normal play mode. It helps you get your bearings. But back to the similarities with Atari.
IMG_6334.jpg
So then I took a closer look at that intro screen...
IMG_6336.jpg
Atari and Commodore 8-bit versions by Mr. P.D. Marshall

I think P.D. Marshall looked at the Atari ST version and tried to base his versions off of that precedent. But holy smoke - and I've not played the ST versions - but if the game mechanics mirror the ST version, that would be freaking horrible! The game feels so unfairly broken on the 64 it made my stomach sick. I'll give it a few more goes to make sure I'm not missing something, but initial impressions were not favorable. Sure, it's kinda pretty, but that STR meter being drained felt like a very sad joke. The kind where you aren't laughing, but getting mad.

If you encounter any monsters, they deplete your STR in about 3 seconds. Your hit points won't even change, yet you'll die. And if that doesn't kill you, the lack of food (with constantly depleting STR) makes this game just feel broken.

Absolute shame. If it had these graphics and UI controls, but the Amiga's game mechanics execution, it would have been a ton of fun. I wonder if there are any roguelike clones on the C64 that are any better?

User avatar
LambdaCalculus
New Jersey, USA

Posted Mon Jul 16, 2018 6:28 am

Having played the Atari ST version of Rogue (via Hatari), I can assure you that the Atari ST version doesn't have this problem with STR draining away like the C64 version does. The ST version plays more like the Amiga version.

It turns out that P.D. Marshall is Paul D. Marshall, and he was responsible for both this version and a version for Atari 8-bit computers; both the C64 and Atari 8-bit versions were ported by him for British budget software house Mastertronic, and they also were responsible for an Amstrad CPC port and a Speccy port.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Mon Jul 16, 2018 11:08 am

I can assure you that the Atari ST version doesn't have this problem with STR draining away like the C64 version does.
That's good to hear. For as many ST fans out there that seem to love Rogue, that would have shocked me if it did.

Really bummed P.D. Marshall seemed to try and "gauntlet-ify" the game, making it borderline impossible to get very far. The game is brilliant! Why change it?

I've been told there are several Rogue off-shoots on Amiga which I plan to explore later. I wonder if there are C64 equivalents? I haven't run across any yet, but it's a vast library. If you ever do, let me know.

User avatar
LambdaCalculus
New Jersey, USA

Posted Tue Jul 17, 2018 6:51 am

intric8 wrote: Really bummed P.D. Marshall seemed to try and "gauntlet-ify" the game, making it borderline impossible to get very far. The game is brilliant! Why change it?
Sounds like something that someone at Mastertronic probably came up with, thinking that Rogue would've been boring otherwise. If that's so, what a misguided move that was!
I've been told there are several Rogue off-shoots on Amiga which I plan to explore later. I wonder if there are C64 equivalents? I haven't run across any yet, but it's a vast library. If you ever do, let me know.
I'm exploring more and more of the Amiga and C64 libraries, now that I have both systems, and I'll definitely post if I see any other cool stuff around!

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Tue Jul 17, 2018 6:54 am

It's been a million years since I played it, but I'm going to give The Sword of Fargoal a shot on C64 soon and see how that goes. I remember liking it a ton BITD. I also really liked the reboot on the iPhone years ago (dang - so many years ago its not even available on the current iOS). iPhone is ten!

User avatar
LambdaCalculus
New Jersey, USA

Posted Wed Jul 18, 2018 6:22 am

One roguelike that's also very famous and very popular is NetHack, which has been ported to practically every platform under the sun. And of course, our beloved Amiga has a port available for it on Aminet!

User avatar
A10001986
1986

Posted Wed Jul 18, 2018 11:21 pm

How old is that game/port? Maybe the STR thing is because of a bad crack (wrong checksum, for instance)...?

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Wed Jul 18, 2018 11:23 pm

It was done in 1988, a good 2 years (or so) after the Amiga version. It seems absolutely intentional. Like, how your food is drained in Gauntlet. Except you never find any food. And you just die.

And if you ever face a monster, you also just die. It's just bad. So sad, because the UI concepts are very cool IMO (as I think they were heavily influenced by the ST version).

User avatar
Pinacolada

Posted Fri Jul 20, 2018 9:42 am

Interesting! I just downloaded the game, will have a look at it, I'll look for the code that decrements the strength and see about removing it. Sounds like that would make it lots more playable.

User avatar
Pinacolada

Posted Fri Jul 20, 2018 10:40 am

So I'll use the VICE monitor to help figure out what's going on. Hit Alt-M (Windows) or Alt-H (Linux). (Stuff I type is in bold.)

>m 0400

This tells the monitor to display screen memory. Strength is displayed as "Strength ###":

Code: Select all

>C:0720  48 49 54 20  50 54 53 20  30 30 20 20  20 20 20 53   HIT PTS 00     S
>C:0730  54 52 45 4e  47 54 48 20  30 38 32 20  20 20 20 41   TRENGTH 082    A
>C:0740  52 4d 4f 55  52 20 30 30  48 45 4c 4c  4f 20 50 20   RMOUR 00HELLO P
>C:0750  20 20 20 20  20 20 20 20  20 20 20 20  20 20 20 20
The strength value is stored from $0739-073b. So let's go looking for code that modifies those memory locations.

> h 0801 ffff 0739
7717

This is the routine which writes the strength to the screen.

Code: Select all

.C:7701  AD 65 B7    LDA $B765 ; maybe this is hp
.C:7704  20 48 C4    JSR $C448
.C:7707  8C 28 07    STY $0728
.C:770a  8D 29 07    STA $0729
.C:770d  AD 64 B7    LDA $B764 ; this must be str, maybe somewhere there is a DEC $B764
.C:7710  20 48 C4    JSR $C448 ; should investigate this
.C:7713  8E 38 07    STX $0738
.C:7716  8C 39 07    STY $0739
.C:7719  8D 3A 07    STA $073A
So let's hunt for code that modifies $b764:
>h 0801 ffff 64 b7
6a37
7197
770e
7aff
7b09
7b6d
7f5a
7f60
831c
8322

Quite a few hits. Let's take the first one. Remember, we have to look at the address before the hit, since there will be an opcode which modifies the address we just found.

(C:$6a3b) d 6a33 6a39

Code: Select all

.C:6a33  8D 12 76    STA $7612
.C:6a36  CE 64 B7    DEC $B764 ; here it is...
.C:6a39  D0 03       BNE $6A3E
Let's change the DEC to an LDA (which simply reloads whatever the current strength is):
(C:$6a3b) a 6a36
.6a36 lda $b764
.6a39 <return>

Let's get VICE to tell us what these numbers are in decimal so we can build a POKE statement to modify the game.

(C:$6a3b) ~ 6a36
+27190 ; decimal
$6a36
0065066
%01101010 00110110

(C:$6a3b) ~ ad
+173 ; decimal
$ad
0255
%10101101

To return to BASIC:
>x

The equivalent POKE in BASIC to do before starting the game would be POKE 27190,173.

I don't have a joystick plugged into VICE to test this, and I'm too lazy to set up joystick keys right now, but hopefully it works!

Also, after dying I start a new game with 000 HP?! That seems to be something to look into later.
Last edited by Pinacolada on Fri Jul 20, 2018 11:28 am, edited 1 time in total.





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